


once around the field

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Series: Fluffcember 2020 [8]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blue Lions Route, F/M, Fluffcember 2020, horseback riding training, pre timeskip, schoolboy crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28497261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: Dimitri offers to tutor Annette in horseback riding. He can't decide if it was a mistake or not.Written for the Fluffcember 2020 writing challenge, for the prompt "Horseback Riding"
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Annette Fantine Dominic
Series: Fluffcember 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046863
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	once around the field

The fourth time Dimitri watched Annette fall off the horse, he started to wonder if he was a bad person for offering to tutor her.

“I’m going to fail my valkyrie exam,” she wailed as he leaned over her. “Dimitri, I’m never going to pass, am I?”

“There will be magic and stuff on the exam as well, right?” Dimitri asked, avoiding the question. “I’m sure you’ll do splendidly on that!”

Annette groaned and struggled to get to her feet. Dimitri looped a hand under her elbow and very gently tried to help.

“Shall we try again?” Annette asked, briskly brushing off her skirt. Dimitri felt a bit queasy. The horse had thrown her several feet before she hit the ground last time.

“Umm,” he stumbled in reply, but Annette was grabbing the horse by the reigns and swinging herself up with a form that was carefully learned from books and therefore simultaneously perfect and ridiculously clumsy.

She smiled down at him beautifully. “Once around the field, I’m sure I can do that,” she said. “Any corrections to my form before I go?”

“Um,” Dimitri repeated. He hadn’t realized when he volunteered to train Annette that it would involve so much contact, rearranging her hands and positioning her posture and hiding how much he blushed. But it was too late now. “Actually, hold on,” he said, and in one fluid motion that he had never read in a book but he was pretty sure he could do in his sleep, he swung himself up onto the horse, settling in place behind her.

“Oh! Wow! Hi,” Annette said, craning her head to look at him. “Did I really look that bad?”

“Let’s just try a practice ride around the grounds,” Dimitri said, reaching around her to grab the reigns. His hands almost completely covered hers; he could feel her fingers flexing experimentally under his. “It might help you get a sense of things.”

“Oooh, clever!” Annette said with a giggle. She leaned back against him, settling into place surprisingly easily after her disastrous attempts at riding solo all that afternoon. Dimitri didn’t actually need to reach one of his hands to wrap around her waist and pull her closer; she could hold on to the reigns without his help. But she was so small and had hit the ground with such a sickening crack and he wanted her to be safe. And, secretly, there was something about holding her that made him feel safe and stable, as well.

Annette craned her neck to look at him. “Thanks so much for helping me, Dimitri,” she said with the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. “It’s really . . . I don’t know, it’s just really thoughtful of you!”

“It’s nothing,” Dimitri assured her as the horse broke into a trot, and then a gallop, and she leaned back into him, her hands tight around the reigns.

He felt useful and selfish and wretched and overjoyed all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Diminette Agenda!
> 
> I have like 4 different ideas for Dimitri/Annette related fics and they're almost all about her trying to pass her Valkyrie exam. He'd be a good tutor, I think! He'd just also slowly be dying inside the entire time.
> 
> If you'd like to find more Fluffcember vignettes, you can check out [ my twitter thread ](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes/status/1333858833576325120) of them. You can also see the full prompt list [here](https://twitter.com/doop_doop2/status/1306753380182712321)!


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